Trump Tried to Steal the Vote in Georgia in 2020. Now Election Deniers Run Georgia’s Election System

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

As we look specifically more at Georgia, one of the seven key swing states that could decide the presidency, we’re joined by Ari Berman, the voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones. He’s the author of Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People — and the Fight to Resist It. His latest piece is headlined “How Election Deniers Took Over Georgia’s Election System.”

Ari, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can take it from where Jim left off? And, you know, Georgia will be one of the first states where the voting booths close today, where we’re going to know a lot. Talk about its significance and how it fits into your bigger look at what is happening in this country today.

ARI BERMAN: Well, good morning, Amy. Good morning, Juan. And happy Election Day to you both.

Georgia was really the epicenter of where the Trump campaign tried to overturn the 2020 election. He pressured the state’s Republican secretary of state. He pressured the state’s Republican Legislature. He pressured the state’s Republican governor to overturn Biden’s margin of victory. And when that failed, Trump and his allies really systematically tried to take over Georgia’s election system. They took over county boards of election. We identified 21 election deniers sitting on county boards of elections. They took over the state election board, which issues rules and guidance to those county election boards. They have placed top officials, such as lieutenant governor in Georgia, who was a fake elector for Trump, in important statewide positions.

So, what the Trump movement has done is they’ve put all of these election deniers in positions of power in Georgia and other states — but we focus specifically on Georgia — so that they can spread disinformation, they can undermine trust in fair elections, and they ultimately can try to refuse to certify election results if Kamala Harris wins the state. And that is really what I’m concerned about here, is that this disinformation leads election officials not to certify fair election outcomes. And even if they do certify, this disinformation could lead to very scary outcomes, like potentially another January 6th.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ari, what’s been the response of the courts in Georgia to these moves by the MAGA movement?

ARI BERMAN: Well, the good news is, is that in Georgia the courts blocked seven rules passed by Trump allies on the state election board that could have delayed the counting of votes and could have led officials not to certify election results. So, the good news is the courts have stepped in in Georgia, like they stepped in in 2020, to ensure fair election outcomes.

The worry here, though, is that election deniers are still in positions of power, Juan. So, they could still spread disinformation. They could still undermine faith in fair elections. They could still refuse to certify election results in defiance of what the court has ruled. So, I think what’s shaping up after November 5th, if the election is close, is going to be a battle between the courts and a battle between rogue election officials that would like to defy the law. I believe that the rule of law will prevail here. I believe that the courts will ensure a fair election. But I also think election deniers can do a lot of damage, because they’re in greater positions of power than they were in 2020. In 2020, they were on the outside. They were banging on the doors trying to get in. Now they’ve gotten in those doors. They’ve gotten in those positions of power. They have election authority. And it’s very dangerous to imagine what people who don’t believe in free and fair elections can do when given the power to oversee those very elections.

AMY GOODMAN: But there’s a big difference, Ari, isn’t there? And that is, in 2020, Trump was in charge — right? — of the federal government. Now he isn’t, but you’re talking about state election boards. So, my question is, when you talk about a January 6, you know, the insurrection in Washington, this image people have, over a hundred police officers injured, a number died in that days and the days after — it’s not exactly going to be in Washington, is it?

ARI BERMAN: No, I think that’s a really good point, Amy. The focus is going to be the state capitals now, because that’s where Republicans have the most influence. They control all of state government in Georgia. So, you’re more likely to see an event at the Georgia state Capitol than the U.S. Capitol.

But that said, there is a role that the federal government can play. And let me just outline one possible nightmare scenario, which is that local officials refuse to certify the election results in Georgia. That delays the counting of results. That means that Georgia misses its deadline to send its electoral votes to Congress. That could mean that no candidate has a majority in the Electoral College. If no candidate has a majority, that could mean that the election would be thrown to the GOP-controlled House, where a majority of state delegations, not a majority of the House, would select the next president. So, you could see a situation where Trump loses the popular vote, does not win a majority of the Electoral College, but the election is still thrown to a Republican-controlled House who installs Trump as president nonetheless. That is a far-fetched scenario, but it is possible under the Constitution and one of the things that I am concerned about as we’re talking about this on Election Day.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ari, I wanted to ask you about another battleground state, Wisconsin. You wrote a piece for Mother Jones titled “The Democrats’ Secret Weapon in Wisconsin.” Could you talk about that?

ARI BERMAN: Yes. So, Wisconsin is a heavily gerrymandered state where Republicans have lopsided majorities in the state Legislature. They have almost two-thirds supermajority in both chambers of the Legislature, even though it’s a 50/50 state. Those gerrymandered maps were struck down by the state Supreme Court last year, which means there are going to be competitive elections at the state legislative level in Wisconsin for the first time in nearly a decade and a half. And that’s motivating a lot of people to vote in Wisconsin to try to flip that Legislature blue instead of red. The conventional wisdom is that people vote for the top of the ticket, and they forget about those down-ballot races. And that’s often true. But in Wisconsin, it could be the opposite. A lot of people are energized by what’s happening at the bottom of the ticket. And one of the things I’ve been talking about more broadly is state legislatures are so critically important. They’re the ones who pass laws on things like abortion, voting rights, gun control, so many other issues. And they don’t get nearly as much attention as what happens at the top of the ticket. And these races are often decided by just a handful of votes. So, I think, not just in Wisconsin, but in other key swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona — there’s critically important state legislative races that aren’t getting nearly as much attention as the presidential race but are going to go a long way toward shaping the direction of the country.